David Ragan made a late-race pass on Carl Edwards for the lead and then held off his Roush Fenway Racing teammate in a two-lap overtime finish to win Friday’s Food City 250 Nationwide Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Ragan scored his second career Nationwide victory. His first win came in April at Talladega. MiamiHerald.com
“It was a fun night to drive such a fast race car,” said Ragan, who chose the outside line for the final restart, as the race went four laps beyond its scheduled distance. “The outside had been great all night. I really struggled passing cars on the bottom.
“I raced with Carl—it was fun racing with a teammate—and I was able to pin him behind a lapped car. I don’t think I would have passed him [otherwise], because he was running that middle groove, and I just couldn’t get around him.”
The race ended under caution because of a wreck on the final lap that froze the running order with Ragan in the lead.
Polesitter Brad Keselowski rallied from an early fender-bender to finish third, followed by Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth. NASCAR
“We didn’t come here to finish second, but he’s a great guy, a great teammate,” Edwards said. “If you guys don’t have a David Ragan hat or T-shirt, you need to go get one. There’s no better guy out there.”
NASCAR Nationwide Series: Food City 250 at Bristol - Race Results
The 19-year-old was a lap down when Busch passed Kevin Harvick for the lead. As Busch and Harvick rounded Turn 4, Austin inexplicably cut down the track and directly into Busch.
Replays showed his hand was out the window motioning his intent to move down the track, but he never knew the traffic was on his inside. He was radioing his team to inform them of a tire problem at the exact time his spotter tried to tell him about Busch and Harvick.
“I heard a lot of fans were happy about it — that’s how I knew it was Kyle,” Austin said of the crowd’s positive reaction to Busch wrecking.
Busch needed a few minutes to compose himself inside his team truck, but seemed sympathetic to Austin’s error when he finally emerged.
“Real unfortunate that it happened,” Busch said. “I’ve made mistakes too. Chase, I guess, didn’t have the spotter telling him the leaders were bearing down. It stinks.”
The bizarre accident allowed Edwards to climb back into the championship race, but he said a Busch wreck wasn’t how he wanted to chip away at the points lead.
“That was some raw excitement,” Edwards said. “That was unexpected. We made up some points, but that’s not the way we want to do it.” The Associated Press
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